“Political representatives only have so much power. We are not going to be able to offset this economic crisis coming from the Tory budget.” That was the warning issued by Sinn Féin Junior Minister Jennifer McCann at a meeting with voluntary and community sector representatives in Fermanagh House last Thursday.

“I don’t want to be a scaremonger but the Assembly and the Executive are facing the gravest threat that they have seen since 2007; it’s a financial threat. The difficulty is that the institutions are coming out of the last few years with a deficit of £1.5 billion of our £10 billion block grant.

“We also have the issue of welfare which hasn’t been sorted. The July 8 Budget by George Osborne will include £12 billion in cuts to welfare. What this means is a cut to the income received by many families into their hand,” Ms. McCann stated.

The West Belfast MLA warned: “Even what you currently have is under threat. This will not get sorted unless we get more money.” She was challenged by 81-year-old Florencecourt woman Viola Wiggins, who said: “With all due respect, [Sinn Féin] don’t take your Westminster seat so there’s damn all you can do about it.” In response, Ms McCann stated: “The Westminster MPs that do take their seats from the north haven’t had any impact at all.” The meeting was one of many that Sinn Féin MLAs have been instructed by the party to carry out across Northern Ireland to gauge the potential impact of Stormont and UK Government cuts across all the sectors. It is recognised at government level that the voluntary and community secotr will be hit the hardest.

Ms. McCann told the gathering: “People are coming into my West Belfast constituency office with welfare concerns; there are low paid workers worried about cuts to tax credits, teachers worried about cuts to school budgets, people who can’t get a care package, people who can’t heat their homes. In 2015 we even have people having to use food banks; it’s as bad as that.” In response, Jim Ledwith, convenor of the Fermanagh Trust board of trustees stated: “No doubt poverty in Belfast is bad. But it’s exacerbated four times over in rural areas such as Fermanagh.” He pointed to the ongoing emigration of Fermanagh’s youth, saying: “There are no jobs here. When it gets bad here it gets really bad.” Ms. McCann explained that, in April, the two junior Ministers began assessing the cumulative impact of the cuts that departments were making to voluntary and community bodies and were liaising with NICVA on the issue (Northern Ireland Community and Voluntary Association). A local health care worker criticised NICVA for being “very Belfast centric” and stated: “We have major issues here in Fermanagh, just like in West Belfast. Often the voice of Fermanagh gets lost.” Concerns were also aired in relation to a “lack of joined-up thinking in Stormont departments”, cuts to community education, cuts to early years funding and the 39 per cent cut to Fermanagh Community Transport which has resulted in a reduced service for the elderly and rurally isolated locals.

Priscilla Magee: Locality Planning Co-ordinator for the Health and Social Care Board’s Children and Young People Strategic Partnership “The impending cuts should gird our loins and give us the impetus to work better and more effectively together.

“We should want to put the needs of families first and make a difference. We understand that families today are facing more challenges than ever before.

“Because we don’t have a high population like Belfast or Derry, the same level of funding isn’t coming to us.” Anita Flanagan: Manager of Fermanagh Community Transport “Transport for Northern Ireland was cut by 21 per cent but for rural areas it was cut by 33 per cent; departments need to look at that because transport is far more needed in rural areas than in urban centres.” Viola Wiggins: Member of Florencecourt Hot Potato luncheon club “The Rural Community Transport used to bring us to the Hot Potato club every two weeks but now, because of cuts, they can only come and get us twice a month.

“It is a very valuable club. It’s very important because most of the people who come are widows, their families are away from home, they are in rural isolation, it’s socialisation for them twice a month.

“Today’s discussion was geared towards the younger person, the pensioner was forgotten about. I think the government in general would like to think that pensioners, when they reach 65, would climb into the box and say: ‘Throw the sod on top of me to save money’.

“I am very angry about the proposed cuts to day care services, they are scandalous. The big proposal is that the people with dementia are going to be taken from Garrison and Belcoo and bussed to Derrygonnelly. Well, anybody dealing with someone with dementia knows that if you take a person with dementia two yards away from their own footpath they’re confused, lost and disorientated. What’s an hour and a half bus journey going to do to that person’s brain? It’s going to shake it up on the bus to start with on the bad roads and they’re going to be completely disorientated and they are going to be more difficult to handle when they go home. That’s a scandal.

“The other thing that’s a scandal is the fact that we have a state-of-the-art hospital out the road, but if you need dialysis, a mammogram, a biopsy or a bone setting, you have to travel miles. And, if you get an appointment in Londonderry, people from Fermanagh are still getting appointments for Altnagelvin for 10 o’clock in the morning. People can’t make it for 10am from the top of Marlbank or Belcoo to get the bus to Londonderry.” Barry Boyle: Network Co-ordinator with Fermanagh Rural Community Network “My main fear is that government haven’t fully thought through how the cuts are going to impact on rural areas because the bigger noise is coming from the urban areas.

“There needs to be more joined up thinking. Increasingly, government departments are using a one size fits all approach to awarding contracts. We have seen many occasions when a regional body secures the funding, comes to Fermanagh and has to ask the groups that have lost the tender where they should go.

“Local people in rural areas take a long time to build up the confidence to engage with services. They are definitely not going to lift the phone and ring a Belfast number; they need personal contact.

“Government departments don’t take into account the rurality of the place and the length of time it takes to track down and make contact with households.

“It probably adds up better for the economist somewhere, but I think they are building up a crisis for the future because there’ll be no local structure there to support the most vulnerable.”